Friends: plus 1
by Unrequited Hate
Summary: One night down on the beach, Leo finds a flame-headed girl with a temper just as fiery hot as her, along with friendship and comfort. One-shot. Leo/Rachel friendship fic.


The waves lapped at the sandy shore of the beach, glowing eerily from the moonlight reflected in the rippling water. It was a warm summer night, and Leo Valdez sat alone, hidden from the harpies by a sand dune. The sky was completely void of any cloud, so the light of the stars and the moon sufficed to illuminate the scene, and the son of Hephaestus didn't need to use his gift to provide enough light to see.

He liked to come down to the ocean at night, even with the danger of getting caught by the harpies. The water calmed him, and he'd rather risk a couple weeks on kitchen duty than spend a sleepless night, restlessly tossing and turning in his bed. To be honest, he should be scared of the water, since it was the opposite of his element, but he just couldn't bring himself to be. He sighed, digging a flat, round pebble out of the sand before tossing it out to sea with a flick of his wrist, watching it bounce a few times before disappearing beneath the surface.

A few minutes later, he was curling up in a ball on the soft mattress of sand, ready to doze off. He was in that halfway state between asleep and alert, right before you slip away into the land of dreams, when he heard a twig snap just a few feet away from him. He shot up, flames flickering in the palm of his hand, ready to defend himself, before lowering his arm when he recognized the pale red-head standing in front of him.

"Rachel?" He tilted his head to the side while frowning, which was a sign of confusion for the Latino boy. "What are you doing here?"

"I was just taking a walk. I couldn't sleep," she answered, a cheerful grin adorning her freckled face. Leo sank back to the ground, sitting cross-legged with his elbow resting on his knee and his chin in his hand. He patted the ground next to him, inviting Rachel to sit down as well, and she did.

"You should probably be more careful," the demigod commented. "The harpies will attack you if they find you wandering about at night, even though you're the Oracle. And, not to downgrade you or anything, but you're still a mortal, even though you spout green smoke and prophecies, so you'd have trouble defending yourself against the chicken ladies."

Rachel grinned again, lips parting over pearly white teeth, even letting loose a small chuckle. Then, her expression morphed into a frown, the crease between her eyebrows becoming more evident.

"Leo, are you okay?" The frown deepened. "You don't seem like yourself."

"I don't know if I'm okay," Leo sighed. "I just... well, lately I've been feeling... I don't know, _unimportant_, like a third wheel, except there are seven of us, so it's more like a seventh wheel. The others just have so much use, I guess, and I'm kinda useless. I mean, Jason got his lightning and his flying, Piper's got her charmspeak, Hazel's got her freaky power over metal, Frank can shift shape, Percy's got his water powers and even Annabeth is super smart. I've got nothing that's going to help anyone in any way, except maybe my talent at annoying gods," he finished, eyes wet and shiny with tears.

"Oh, Leo, don't think like that," Rachel exclaimed worriedly, "You know that's not true! You've got your fire powers!"

"Yeah, the fire powers that everyone's secretly terrified of," Leo scoffed. Rachel sighed, slipping an arm around Leo's shoulders. She was surprised when he didn't shrug it off.

"You know, you say Annabeth's smart, and yes, of course she is, she's a daughter of Athena. She's smart and intelligent, along with being wise. But you see, being smart is something you're just born with, or not. It's a gift which makes it easier for the people who have it to learn, memorize and understand things. It doesn't mean they're any better than you. If you work hard and do your best, you can achieve just as much as the smart people. Because you're wise too, in your own way. Everyone has one little thing, a talent they can work with to go far in life. You've got it too, Leo. You're brave, incredibly brave, in your own way. You hide your problems beneath that layer of immature humor, but there's so much sadness in you. If my mother had died in a fire that I knew was my doing, I don't think I would be able to handle it. You did, and you still do. You are brave, Leo Valdez, believe it or not. It's your own brand of wisdom," Rachel finished, a small smile dancing across her lips. Leo smiled back at her, feeling a little better already.

"I guess you're right... as usual."

"Well, I am the oracle," Rachel laughed, before the pair fell back into comfortable silence, watching the waves crash into the sand mere meters away from them.

After a few more hours of pointless chatting about the quest and life in general, the flame-headed girl noticed the sun peeking out behind the dunes, meaning it must have been around seven o'clock in the morning. Her face fell at the realization that she would have to leave soon and let Leo get back to his cabin to get ready for the day. She voiced her thoughts, and Leo agreed, sitting up and brushing the sand off his jeans. She did the same, and turned away to leave.

"Wait, Rachel," Leo called from behind her. Running to catch up with her, he skidded to a stop in the sand and brought a hand up to scratch the back of his neck, like he always did when he was nervous.

"Umm... I just wanted to say I enjoyed this... spending the night with you, I mean... like, I enjoy talking to you and... umm... yeah. Basically I just wanted to know if you'd be interested in doing this again, like, spending the evening together, on the beach. Not like a date, just as friends. How do you feel about that?"

"I'd love that!" Rachel smiled warmly. "But not this evening, please. I can't exactly string two sleepless nights together. How about tomorrow evening?"

"Sure, that's fine, Ray," he grinned back. Rachel turned away, blushing at the nickname and walked towards the Big House with one last wave of the hand.

Leo sat back down on the sand, deciding to wait a little longer to watch the sun rise before the breakfast bell called him. And, like the oblivious idiot he was, the only thought running through his mind was: _Friends__:__ +1_!

**A/N: First off, I'd like to apologize for wasting a few minutes of your day. Secondly, written for the Treasure Hunt Competition, blah blah blah, the prompt was Owl City's 'When Can I See You Again?', which I kind of interpreted (for the sake of the fic) as having as two people nice time together but having to leave and wondering when they can see each other again. Also, this one-shot is over 1.000 words (1.120 to be exact) so be happy! Thanks for reading, and bye!**

**P.S - As you may have noticed, I've changed my Pen Name to Unrequited Hate, so yeah...**


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